Wind, Sky, & Stone — A Fable: Part One

Day Nine of Thirty Days of Writing

Shawn McDaniel
Jul 24, 2017 · 4 min read
Photo by Ferhat Deniz Fors on Unsplash

Late one evening, as the valley and all its inhabitants lay taciturn, Stone found itself in a somnolent state, riddled with longing for that lambent star which had once been bedazzling but now, and from here after it seemed, would reside in Shadow. It was in this gloomy attire and wakeless evening that duplicitous Wind approached the exigent looking Stone and proposed a perplexing notion.

“Hello Stone, I see you are wearing a worry face — there are so many faces to choose from. I do love them all.”

During its overlong existence Stone had noticed Wind, had seen her raw power and beauty. She could caress a field of wheat like running long fingers through golden hair, or snap hundred year old tree trunks with a flick of her breath. It was careful to be wary of such fickle beings.

“No wonder you feign sleep,” Wind continued, “I can appear intimidating to some, and communication is not my strong point.”

“Do not fret Wind, I have heard countless voices in my time, I’ll understand yours as moments pass.”

“Then I shall cut to chase as they say. Have you ever wanted another life, that is, alongside the life that you live now, a kind of secret life?” Each time Wind speaks a gust passes through the valley, stirring the bushes and the trees, scattering dust lightly. She pauses for a moment, but when Stone remains silent, she asks, “Sky is a friend of yours, is he not? You know of us.”

Stone had befriended Sky long ago, lifetimes it seemed. It was also well known in the valley that Wind and Sky had an unusual bond which made Sky overly protective of Wind.

“There may be something you do not know about me though. You see, I have two souls and one body. Think upon that for a moment. How do both my souls communicate and work together to make me? Adventure out to sea a little further and believe I have three souls with one body. What do you think stone?”

Stone ponders upon the direction of this interrogation, filled with both suspicion and intrigue. After several moments it responds, “Perhaps each soul vies for attention. One moment the first soul, let us call her Storm, seizes her opportunity to exhort control over the body. Perhaps she exemplifies this in the emotion of rage. Whenever Storm is in charge, you thrash about and devastate the landscape and all its little inhabitants. When she finally subsides, the second soul, we can call her Calm, emanates tranquility over the land and in the atmosphere. In this way the souls coexist, each taking their turn.”

Something is off about this hypothesis, Stone decides. The problem is that both souls most certainly contain both aggressive and tranquil characteristics, otherwise they would not be complete souls, merely particular aspects of a single soul. In such a state the body or mind would be torn in many directions by these complicated souls, like an argument in a crowded forum, where everyone just shouts over the other. If Wind had nails Stone is sure she would be inspecting them out of habitual boredom at this moment.

“They must work together, naturally, to make you complete,” Stone collects himself, “like any community, they must coexist through compromise and understanding. Imagine a sphere in which light and dark circle one another endlessly. At first thought they appear to be only opposite ends of a spectrum, two opposing points at the end of a line, a dichotomy, masculine and feminine. However, light cannot exist without dark, for how could one understand what light is without darkness? They exist in harmony — are essentially part of the same whole.” Stone pauses, unsure of where to go to next. Its mind wanders back to that most sacred star which guides lost travelers, known as the North Star, hailed as Polaris.

“Keep speaking little rock, I want to track your mind. What of three souls?” Wind picked up, nearly unearthing Stone from its resting point, but then calm returned once again.

“Well, when you think of a triangle or pyramid, there is stability. When you think of cooperation between many souls, there is a superlative ability to generate numerous ideas. However, just as in a triangle, a single line cannot meet the two other lines at the same point, so it is with souls. It can be difficult to collaborate too grossly, for two of the three lines to become too entwined at single point because the other line is likely to become jealous if they do not receive the attention they desire, the stability is undermined, but…” Stone stutter steps, “if we are all indeed part of the same whole, what is there to be jealous about?” Stone stops completely.

“Yes yes yes,” Wind cuts in, “And so in my vast and malleable body there are many souls and one of these souls is attracted to you Stone, and I suppose you might say that part of me is more of a wondering soul than anything.”

“A wondering soul?”

“I wonder what you wonder, where your mind goes and where your body has been. I feel like every being has multiple souls which must share a single body. Do not get me wrong, Stone, I love Sky very dearly, Sky is my other half, he is laying here next to me as we speak. He is still stuck in the souls and minds, Ha!” Wind’s cackle whips up a whirlwind all about Stone. “I can be a very dizzying being,” her uproarious laughter grows into a fervent storm.

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